The PfPC was founded in 1998 in response to the speech by United States Secretary of Defense William Cohen, "Toward a Cooperative Security Network for the 21st Century".
[5] The PfPC was originally co-sponsored by the United States and Germany to work in the spirit of the Partnership for Peace Program "to strengthen defense and military education through enhanced national and institutional cooperation."
In the Canadian House of Commons in 2017, the PfPC's long contribution "in promoting stability, security, and democracy" was noted by the Honorable Wayne Easter, Liberal MP for Malpeque.
Over 90 PfPC events per year across the US, Europe and Central Asia provide the activity groups with a forum for debate and exchange of ideas on contemporary security topics.
Such forums are designed to identify and facilitate options for nonviolent resolution to international differences, and to further defense education transformation goals in recipient countries.
The Advanced Distributed Learning Working Group’s[8] mission is to strengthen e-learning-based defense and security policy education through international and institutional collaboration.
A strategic goal is to contribute to the Defense Education Enhancement Program (DEEP) and integrate interested Partner nations into the ADL community of practice.
As of December 2014, DEEP programs were underway in 13 nations: Afghanistan,[11] Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia,[12] Iraq, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Moldova, Mongolia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
The Security Sector Reform Working Group (SSRWG) was formally established in 2001 and is financially supported by the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport.
This led the group to identify teaching gender to the military as an area that warranted greater attention, resulting in a series of workshops organised in collaboration with the EDWG, starting in 2012.